Anonym
by o Mischief Managed
Summary: OneShot. Before him was not a bloodthirsty vampire or a skilled, hardened hunter. Before him was a boy, a child, as weak and vulnerable as when they'd first met. He needed someone. And Kaien wanted to be that person, a father to his unofficial son.


Woo-hoo! Alright! It's been foreverrrr since I've written a fanfic... *whisper*whisper* Over a year? Really? Wow... I need to get back into this...

Anyway, so first off: This is just a random angsty one-shot that takes place shortly after Rido's attack on Cross Academy, in the middle of that one-year time skip. It's explained pretty thoroughly I think, just read on and you'll see. Also, you'll see I took a lot of liberties and made some assumptions. If anything's wrong, I apologize in advance, but we'll just say I took artistic liscence for the sake of the story, okay?

Also important, this is a songfic to the song **Pages** by **3 Doors Down**. Amazing song. If you've never heard it, I suggest you look it up on YouTube or something, either before or after reading this, doesn't really matter (though the effect might be better if you've heard the song... but eh, my opinion). On that note, the song lyrics are written in **_Bold Italics_**, thoughts are in _Italics_, and the writing from the letters (you'll see when you get down there, hee hee hee) is in _'Italics with single quotes around it'_. Just to clear that up.

As usual, I own absolutely nothing. I don't even technically own my computer... *tear*

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><p>There were so many documents, so much paperwork, so much <em>mess<em> to sort through. Had he really been gone that long? It had only been a few weeks since he'd left the Academy, yet now upon his release from the Hunter Association he was met with what seemed like all the work Yagari had _neglected_ to do in his absence. Inquiries, complaints, applications, piles upon piles and hours upon hours of busy work that meant yet more sleepless nights ahead.

Not that Kaien Cross had expected to find himself an easy night's rest on his first night of freedom in almost three weeks. Cross Academy had remained closed for fourteen days following Rido Kuran's assault while the buildings which had taken the most damage had been rebuilt to working condition. Classes had started again finally, and Kaien was allowed once again to take up his post as headmaster. He was kept aware of events outside during his detainment, being who he was. Kaname had been in touch with the Association, while Yuki, who was last seen by his side, had yet to be sighted. Zero was staying in Kaien's own home as before, and had refused to return to school upon its resumption. Instead it seemed he'd been spending recent weeks locked inside by day and hunting rogue vampires by night. The few times Kaien had caught glimpses of the young hunter, they had not been able to speak.

Just then, the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing echoed from the hallway. _He must have been on another hunt…_ Kaien mused, glancing at the clock on his desk. The hands read almost half past three in the morning. After listening silently to the footsteps in the hall, the headmaster noticed something strange about them. They were off, irregular, as if made by someone with a peg leg. A faint scraping sound accompanied the confusion.

With a jolt Kaien rose from his chair and strode to the door, pulling it open and stepping into the hall. He first glanced right toward the entrance hall and saw nothing, then left down the hall to the bedrooms. Sure enough, there was Zero, leaning against the wall just ahead, seemingly limping. Screwing up his face into a determined glare, Kaien marched straight over to the teen, grabbing his shoulder and shoving his back against the wall. Zero said nothing, only glanced back at the headmaster. Kaien was taken momentarily aback at the blank, hollow expression staring down at him. He felt another pang as he observed the wounds on Zero's right arm and leg. Neither was serious, especially for someone like him, but that didn't mean they shouldn't be treated.

"You know, if you don't tone it down a bit you'll end up getting yourself killed," Kaien said in a steely voice. "From what Yagari tells me, you haven't been taking good care of yourself lately."

"This is nothing," Zero answered quietly, shoving the headmaster's hand off of his shoulder and turning back toward the door to his bedroom. "I'm fine."

_**What happens to a man when  
><strong>__**He spills his heart on a page and  
><strong>__**He watches words flow away then  
><strong>__**His feelings lie on a page alone there, waiting**_

"Look," Kaien began again, following Zero but not touching him again. "I know you don't take your own life very seriously. But you should know that there are people who do." He thought he was making progress when Zero stopped, his hand on the doorknob.

"Why should you care?" he asked in that same low, emotionless voice. "You don't know anything."

Disgruntled, Kaien put his hands on his hips. "I know more than you think. Besides, don't you want to live long enough to be able to see—" His sentence was cut short as the door slammed tightly in his face. He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Yuki…" he finished quietly. He knew he probably shouldn't have brought up the subject of his adoptive daughter, but he needed to get through to Zero somehow. Defeated, he trudged back to his office to resume his work.

As the night wore on, Kaien tried his hardest to get through the piles of paperwork that had been left him. Predictably, however, he couldn't stop worrying about the teen a few rooms down the hall. Ever since Yuki and Kaname's flight, Zero had been even more distant and serious than before, which was really saying something. He wouldn't talk to anyone, he only left the house to go on hunts, and he always seemed tired and sick. On top of that, he often came back with injuries such as the ones that night despite his obvious skill and speed. It was as though he'd given up on everything altogether. And this thought scared Kaien more than anything. As loathe as Zero was to accept it, he'd been like a son to Kaien since the headmaster took him in almost five years ago. He was the only one who'd been there for Zero during his progression from human to vampire, and he probably knew more about the boy than anyone else did. And yet there were so many things that Zero refused to show anyone, so many things inside him that, in his silence and solitude, continued to tear him apart from within. And he could never know how much Kaien worried for him.

_**For someone who cares to read them  
><strong>__**To open their eyes to see them  
><strong>__**To see if they can make his thoughts their own**_

After a little over an hour had passed and very little progress had been made, Kaien, still plagued by his worried thoughts, decided to go check on Zero. He knocked twice on the door, knowing that Zero typically preferred to rest during the day and so was probably awake, but no answer came. He sighed, not having expected any different, before proceeding to open the door and let himself in. It was his house, after all. He could do as he pleased.

Upon entering the room, the first thing the headmaster noticed was that Zero's bed was of course untouched, save for the slightly blood-stained coat that had been thrown on top of it. The teen was instead bent over his desk, his head resting on the surface and turned away, toward the window. Sheets of paper were scattered across the wood of the desk, and his hunter gun, the Bloody Rose, was lying atop them, just out of reach of his left hand.

_**To find out that maybe life's not perfect  
><strong>__**Maybe it's not worth what he gives away**_

Kaien's eyes widened and his stomach seemed to rise and block his throat. Fearing the worst, he dashed over to the desk, grabbing the boy's shoulder. "Zero!" he shouted. To his immense relief, he was met with a low groan as Zero shifted, turning his head to face the headmaster. His eyes were closed, a soft and troubled expression on his face. _He's asleep…_ Kaien realized with a heavy sigh, releasing his grip on Zero's shoulder. He felt slightly stupid for having jumped to conclusions, but with the way Zero had been acting lately… Kaien thought it better not to think about that.

Unsurprisingly, the wounds on Zero's arm and leg were now almost completely healed it seemed. While his clothes around the cuts remained stained dark with blood, the skin itself appeared clean and whole again. Kaien smiled a small smile, just as a gust of wind blew in from the open window on the back wall of the room, ruffling the pages littering the desk beneath its owner. Kaien shook his head and began to gather the papers so he could place them somewhere they'd be safer. But when he caught glimpses of what was written on them, he stopped and examined them more closely.

_**You can see that  
><strong>__**This broken soul is bleeding  
><strong>__**So you concede your feelings  
><strong>__**Inside yourself  
><strong>__**And wander through my heart**_

They seemed almost like letters, only choppy and confused, written messily in dark black ink, in what Kaien knew to be Zero's handwriting. None of them said whom they were for, though it didn't take much thought to narrow the possibilities. Some part of Kaien knew that it was a huge invasion of privacy to read these letters, and that Zero would be most unhappy if he knew. But still he couldn't keep his eyes away from them.

_'Where are you now? Are you with him? That monster. He's someone I can never forgive. All I wanted was for you to stay happy and smiling forever. But he came. He ruined your future. He stole that smile from your face, and filled you with worries and fears.  
><em>_You don't say it. I know it.  
><em>_And I won't forgive him.  
><em>_Not ever.'_

_**Letting you see through me  
><strong>__**Now only consumes me  
><strong>__**Forget your pain  
><strong>__**And watch me fall apart**_

_These must have been written recently…_ Kaien noticed. Each one referred to events that had happened during Rido's attack. And each one said something about Zero that Kaien had, before now, only been able to guess.

_'Him. Me. I can't forgive him. I can't forgive myself. Why? Why did I say those things? To you. You whom I've always wanted to protect. Why are you my enemy now? Is that what you want? Is that what I want? I don't know. I can't know.  
><em>_No. I do know.  
><em>_I can't stop thinking about you. And I hate myself for it. I don't deserve you. I don't deserve to think about you. I don't even deserve to hate you. But I can't stop myself.  
><em>_From needing you. Is that normal?  
><em>_Human. Am I human?  
><em>_I don't know._

_No._

_I do know.'_

Certain words and phrases continued to jump out as Kaien flicked through the pages and pages of abstract letters. '_Human'. 'Forgive'. 'You'. 'Me'. 'Why'. 'Monster'._

_**What happens to his soul when  
><strong>__**It's trapped inside his emotions  
><strong>__**And all of these words he's spoken  
><strong>__**They bind him to the life he's left behind**_

'_I wonder if you hate me. You should. I wonder if you think of me. You shouldn't.'_

'_What is human? How could I know? There's no human left in me. Did you see me that way? Are you human yourself anymore?'_

Then he noticed one letter he'd missed before. It was sitting directly under Zero's gun, a black pen resting beside it. _This must be the most recent one…_ Kaien realized, carefully and quietly lifting it from beneath the hunter weapon and scanning it with his eyes. As he read it, a biting sadness crept through him.

_**And every new step he takes, he  
><strong>__**Knows that he might not make it  
><strong>__**To all of these dreams that he has yet to find**_

'_Is there any point? Any purpose? Why am I still here? If I hunted down every single pureblood that existed, what would happen? When it came down to only you, would I be able to finish my job? Can I hate you? Can I find you? If I do find you. Then what? I said I would kill you. But will I? Can I? Or maybe. Can you kill me instead? Would that be better? Easier? Would that be right? Is that what you want? Is that what I want?  
><em>_What do I want? To live. To die. To kill. To be killed. To be human. To be a monster.  
><em>_What do you want? Him. Me. Past. Future. Life. Death.  
><em>_Love?_

_What do you want me to do?'_

_**Maybe life's not perfect  
><strong>__**Maybe it's not worth what he gives away**_

_So this is what he's been thinking about… all alone like this…_ Kaien looked down at the sleeping teen before him and experienced an odd mix of emotions. Sadness, pity, fear, concern, love. All this time, Zero had been struggling with the choices he'd made and the things he'd done and promised to do. He hadn't given up on life like Kaien had feared, he simply didn't know what to do.

_**You can see that  
><strong>__**This broken soul is bleeding  
><strong>__**So you concede your feelings  
><strong>__**Inside yourself  
><strong>__**And wander through my heart**_

Just then, another rush of wind penetrated the room through the window, rustling the pages in Kaien's hands and the blood-stained clothes on Zero's back. As Zero shivered at the sudden onslaught of chilly, early morning air, Kaien felt a rush of emotion once more. Before him was not a bloodthirsty vampire or a skilled, hardened hunter. Before him was a boy, a child, as weak and vulnerable as when they'd first met years ago.

_**Letting you see through me  
><strong>__**Now only consumes me  
><strong>__**Forget your pain  
><strong>__**And watch me fall apart**_

This time however, instead of struggling with the pains of losing his family and his vampire transformation, he was struggling with his promise to kill the person he'd sworn to protect, and the uncertain, bloody future that he knew awaited him. He wasn't a monster, no matter how he saw himself. He was human. And somewhere inside, Zero needed someone, just like he had back then. Someone to be there for him, to keep him from destroying himself. And once again, Kaien wanted nothing more than to be that person, to be a father to his unofficial son.

_**As I fall apart**_

Silently the headmaster set the pile of letters back down on the desk, before moving to the window and pulling it closed. He then proceeded to pull the blanket off of the bed and tuck it around Zero's shoulders, shielding him from the harsh cold of everything outside, both literal and figurative. Zero shifted once more, before his expression softened into one of peaceful slumber. Kaien hoped that whatever nightmare he'd been having had faded, allowing his restless soul a short while of freedom, a freedom he more than deserved.

It was a shame that Zero insisted on putting himself through so much pain and anguish, Kaien lamented as he quietly left the room. The things that were written in those letters proved that much. The headmaster knew his student would likely figure out that his writings had been read, but he hoped that at least he would see that Kaien really did care for him, and only ever wanted to be there for him, even if there was nothing he could do.

_**You can see that  
><strong>__**This broken soul is bleeding  
><strong>__**So you concede your feelings  
><strong>__**Inside yourself  
><strong>__**And wander through my heart**_

Admittedly, Kaien couldn't help but feel partly responsible for the hardships his 'family' had gone through. If he hadn't insisted that Yuki and Zero spend so much time together, would things have turned out the way they had? Could they both have been saved even a small amount of suffering? Living as long as he had, he knew that there was no use in dreaming up what could have been. But that could never change his desire to lift the burdens of his loved ones, whether they truly belonged to him or not. So he would continue on as he had, doing all he could to be someone they could rely on, whether they wanted him or not.

_**Letting you see through me  
><strong>__**Now only consumes me  
><strong>__**Forget your pain  
><strong>__**And watch me fall apart**_

Because real or fake, a father should never be helpless to ease the pain of his children.

_**As I fall apart**_

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><p>Whoo, that was angsty... I like angsty stuff though, yanno? You feel it more than like fluffy stuff. I dunno, maybe it's just me that's some weird, sadistic lunatic... heh heh (wait till I get the other VK songfic I have outlined up, then you'll think I'm more of a sadistic lunatic, heh heh).<p>

Remember, reviews are love, everybody! oMM OUT!

v(^_^)v


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